Exercise can help you think better today!....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 5-17-2012

When you exercise, your body sends a growth hormone called BDNF to your brain.  This apparently benefits each part of your brain, causing it to add to, regrow, or repair the nerves in that each part of your brain.

Vigorous exercise may help you release more BDNF and does boost your circulation more than more moderate exercise.

BUT, a modest amount of walking releases enough BDNF to keep your brain from shrinking.

Many if not most sedentary people gradually have their brains shrink as they get older.

But studies show as little as 6 miles a week of walking prevents that.

We also know that cutting  way back on your omega 6 intake by avoiding refined grains, fats from grain fed meat, and oils made from grains such as soy and canola and corn oil PLUS eating fish high in omega 3 oils and/or taking purified fish oil omega 3 supplements including a DHA supplement helps prevent brain shrinkage too.

So if you want to stay mentally sharp, getting vigorous exercise even if only for a few minutes most days of every week and a modest amount of moderate exercise each week also plus the eating upgrades will do so.  It also gives you multiple other health benefits.

But a recent study is exciting.  It seems you don’t have to wait several years for the benefit. 

When you get vigorous exercise today, your memory and thinking skills are better TODAY too!

You get the long range benefits if you do the exercise every week to be sure.

But you get substantial mental empowerment within hours of doing the exercise!

In a recent email from an outfit called Natural Health Sherpa, I found this:

“In a recent study, scientists in Ireland looked at the effects of vigorous exercise on memory and recall.* A test group of male college students were first shown a quick-fire lineup of photos with the faces and names of complete strangers. After a short break, they were asked to recall the names again as the photos zipped rapidly across a computer screen in random order.

Next, half of the group rode a stationary bicycle until they were exhausted... while the other half sat quietly and did nothing.

And then both groups took the brain-teaser test again.

Interestingly, the students who had worked out performed significantly better on the memory test the second time around... while the sedentary group did not improve at all.”

* Griffin ÉW, Mullally S, Foley C, et al. Aerobic exercise improves hippocampal function and increases BDNF in the serum of young adult males. Physiol Behav. 2011. 104: 934-41.

The researchers saw the better performance on the memory test and the strong release of BDNF and apparently concluded that BDNF not only grows new brain cells but somehow causes the ones already there to function better.

This may be so.  That would make BDNF release extremely desirable if true!

But the better circulation and possibly the stress relief of the exercise and the increased release of other neurotransmitters likely also helped cause the performance improvement or caused the performance improvement without the BDNF.

A similar effect has been reported before.  I once read that you would recall an athletic event better if you were moving around while you watched it or listened to the play by play than you would if you watched on TV from your couch.

When I read that, I realized the best memory I ever had of an athletic event was when I had to listen to it on the radio while I raked leaves instead of sitting down before our TV to watch it.

Interesting!

That means the effect does NOT depend on working out until you are exhausted.  Moderate activity with occasional extra effort will also work.

Taken together this research has two enormously important implications.

1.  First thing in the morning is the best time to do a few minutes of vigorous exercise every weekday because it’s easier to do consistently before the varied demands of the day intervene later in the day.  It simply becomes a normal part of your getting up routine.

But THIS study suggests a huge extra benefit.  Your mental performance and memory will be better all day after that -- or it will at least in the morning.

2.  I’ve posted on how having a “walking desk” or a foot operated under the desk exerciser would enable you to burn enough extra calories to make fat loss faster, more reliable, and easier to keep off.  There is also evidence that this stops the health problems otherwise caused by too much sitting every day.

But THIS study suggests a huge extra benefit.  Your mental performance and memory will be better all day too!

In fact, in a recent book, half comic and half serious, about a writer’s trial of various health upgrades, Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A. J. Jacobs, he does report he immediately lost an extra 3 pounds the first month he used a walking desk which he then kept off and added to while using it at a point in his fat loss program where most people begin to regain the weight they lost.

But he also notes he felt his work was easier and he had a more optimistic mood than he did before he began to use it.

1.  Does that mean that I should put more of a priority on getting some kind of at my desk exerciser than I have?

You bet it does!

2.  But it also means that every single company in the United States who wants their employees who work at a desk to be productive should find an effective at the desk exerciser for every one of those employees.

The companies that do so will have a classic “unfair competitive advantage” over the companies that do not. 

Their employees will be more optimistic so morale will be better.  They will be less fat and their health will be better while their health care costs will go down. And, they will do better work and make fewer mistakes from forgetting things.

3.  It also means that the quality and ease of use of such exercisers should go up dramatically without increasing their cost too much.

Klutzy, hard to use under the desk exercisers now run about $150.  A premade walking desk costs about $1,000 and the author made one up out of used stuff plus a $300 treadmill for about $400.

What’s needed is an under the desk exerciser that is smooth and easy to use and can be made to fit under most existing desks that would sell for about $200.

The first company to make one that good and get the word out about it and this new information will make a LOT of money!

So, if you know of a consumer products company that would like best selling new product or a fitness equipment company who would like one, have them contact me!

They can email me at davideller7@yahoo.com .

I think I know how to make one.